Recently, lotteries have been used worldwide as a way to generate revenue for state and local governments. Typically, these lotteries use "dedicated" tickets, or game pieces. That is, the ticket is either solely a winning ticket or a losing ticket. The player removes all the material, such as latex, covering a portion of the ticket to determine if the ticket is either an instant loser or an instant winner. Since the lotteries are for profit enterprises, there are many more losing tickets than winning ones. Therefore, dedicated games are more often instant lose games than instant win games. Nevertheless, they are very popular.
Currently, dedicated game pieces rely solely on imaginative graphics, colors and themes to stimulate customer sales. A drawback to using dedicated game pieces is that they provide little variation in the play style. Without skill one need only remove the covering material to determine if the game piece is a winner or a loser. Since the style of play is so repetitive, player burnout has become an increasing problem. Recently there has been interest in other forms of game play which might rekindle customer interest.
Traditional lottery games rely on scratch off game pieces which are seeded before distribution in order to control the number of potential winners. A mix of winners to losers is prearranged by the customer. Once offered for sale to the public, the results of the lottery are predictable with an amount set aside to cover the winning game pieces. This amount is referred to as the prize purse or prize liability.
Because the number of winners is tightly controlled, the sponsor is given great psychological comfort. After all, if the number of game pieces is limited, then only that number of winners can be redeemed and no more. As a practical matter, games of this nature actually redeem at less than the maximum redemption amount since all of the game pieces are not sold, not played correctly, or invalidated in some manner.
There is another way to control the number of prizes awarded which uses the laws of probability. Such a game is commonly referred to as a probability game. Prior art probability games involve a game in which each game ticket is a potential winner. Each game piece includes a number of scratch off play areas concealing win or other symbols. To play the game, an individual removes the concealing material covering a specified number of the play areas to reveal the symbols beneath them. The player then determines whether the combination of revealed symbols results in a winner. A winning game piece may exist where all of the symbols are the same, add up to, or represent a winning combination. Each game piece includes at least one such winning combination, which contributes to the probability game's popularity.
The operation of the laws of probability control the number of players who successfully find a part of or the entire combination of symbols which produce the winning result. For instance, the probability of successfully locating the one location on a game piece which contains a winning symbol is greater if the player is allowed a number of chances rather than only one.
Probability games, however, poses some potential problems. The most significant of these problems is that of excessive prize purse liability. Although highly unlikely, every game piece has the potential of being redeemed. This could lead to massive redemption and uncontrolled amounts of prize liability. That is, every player could select the same numbers in a single game and all could claim a prize. This is not the same as in a game like Keno where the prize is parimutual and distributed among all claimants. In a probability game, the prizes are not pari-mutual and the sponsor would have to pay off at the stated amount for all the prizes redeemed. This is potentially very troubling.
Each probability game has two types of prize purse liability associated with it. The first type of prize purse liability is the amount of liability that is predicted to occur if the laws of probability operate as expected. This is referred to herein as the expected prize purse. But because of the chance of an unusual redemption coincidence, an allowance must be made for the highly unlikely event of massive redemption as described above. This is referred to as the maximum redemption liability. The maximum redemption liability is the amount of prize sufficient to cover all the game pieces if played to the maximum value and redeemed. This may be a very large number. It is common for lottery games to have five to ten million game pieces. If everyone had a potential prize value of 100 dollars, regardless of how remote the chances that all will be redeemed, the maximum redemption liability would be 1 billion dollars. It is not practical to set aside such a vast amount of money.
To cover the potential maximum redemption liability, the credit of the sponsor could be a bank against which these claims could be made. This is similar to the banking operations of a casino in Nevada or Atlantic City. In games such as roulette or craps, any outcome is possible. The number of winners and the amount of their winnings, although predictable to some certainty based upon the probability, cannot be guaranteed. A limit is therefore established to minimize the amounts won, no matter the outcome. This limit is further guaranteed by a bank backed by the credit of the casino. State lotteries do not allow for such banking to occur. States, when establishing lotteries, did not intend to authorize gambling houses and cannot run an unsecured lottery similar to one of a gambling house.
The potential large liability may make such a game uninsurable. Insurance underwriters do not wish to indemnify the prize purse when the liability is potentially uncontrolled. Because of these difficulties, the development and deployment of probability games has been slow.
Another problem associated with probability games is fraud and involves a situation where a player removes the covering material from more than the number allowed by the game. For instance, where a player is allowed six attempts to find the winning areas and instead takes seven or eight. Although this problem would seem apparently easy to handle due to the apparently clear violation of the rules, the redemption of the tickets is typically handled by clerks. These clerks must be able to determine the value of a ticket, particularly because the tickets are not like those of dedicated games, which are either clearly winners or clearly losers. A probability game ticket could be much harder to read and may lead to mistakes by clerks. Therefore, what is desired is a way to handle fraudulent play while eliminating potential mistakes by clerks.
Game pieces are usually verified and authenticated by the use of an encrypted alphanumeric bar code. The code often appears twice on a ticket, once printed so that it is visible to the human eye and once printed and concealed on the game piece, via, for example, latex removable scratch off coating. Various methods have been used to make game piece redemption simple and secure. In simple form, authentication takes place when a bar code scanner reads the code printed in the clear and a clerk compares the code to the number that is concealed.
The currently most successful authentication procedure is a double encryption process in which a code is printed on the back of the game piece and an encrypted code placed under the latex on the playing side. After the game has been played, the playing side code number is revealed and a key code is entered by, for instance, a clerk which triggers an algorithm that matches the scanned number to (in the case of a valid ticket) the one printed under the latex. The success of the authentication assumes that the clerk enters the key numbers correctly and follows proper redemption procedures.
In a dedicated game, since each game piece is dedicated in value (i.e., has only one possible value), the decoded game piece number can be matched in a database and the value displayed for the clerk. The game piece can then be redeemed and the number removed from the data base to prevent further attempts at redemption for that particular piece.
Again, the weak link in this system is the clerk who enters the key code. If the clerk is clumsy, inefficient or busy, several attempts might be necessary to verify the piece. If the clerk is dishonest, he can misinform the client and attempt to suborn the game piece for himself. This has prompted manufacturers to find a more efficient and secure method of game piece verification and redemption.
Apart from the potential for human error and unscrupulous behavior, this authentication process is relatively secure. However, there is also a need to have the game pieces scored (i.e., the amount of winning determined), as well as authenticated. What is needed is a way to automate the entire process (both authentication and scoring) without requiring clerk involvement. Once such automation is achieved, more complicated games could be produced.
The present invention provides for a probability game that controls prize liability while accommodating the practical problems of player fraud and clerk mismanagement. The present invention also provides for automating the process of authentication and scoring.